Frankie to unveil St Leger memorial

STAR jockey Frankie Dettori MBE will be galloping in to a sleepy Rotherham village just hours before his appearance at this year’s St Leger meeting on Saturday.

Dettori will unveil a plaque to mark the spot where the founder of the legendary annual race meeting — Major-Gen Anthony St Leger — once lived.

Frankie will unveil the blue plaque at Firbeck Village Hall at around 11am before competing in the event he has won five times at Doncaster Racecourse.

The plaque will mark the spot of the now-demolished Park Hill House where Major-Gen St Leger lived when the first St Leger race meeting was held in 1776 on a giant oval grass track between Firbeck and neighbouring Letwell.

Another plaque will be unveiled in honour of another famous former Firbeck resident, pioneer ecologist Hewett Cottrell Watson.
The plaque will be unveiled by Mr Ian Bonner, President of the Botanical Society of the British Isles.